I think people would think twice about suicide if this was the case. Lets look at it from both sides, if reincarnation didnt exist killing yourself would be the ultimate ending of your life, you will no longer feel fear, sadness, or regret. You will no longer be capable of caring about the people you've affected with your death. Now lets say Reincarnation DID exist, you killing yourself would affect everyone connected to you which could indirectly affect your newly formed body. For example your mother from your previous life could still be mourning your death and instead of you being unable to have feelings or witness this you walk up to her with your new body and see how much your death has hurt this person, thus affecting your new self and bringing back emotions.
Think how sad it'd make you to witness your own funeral.
"And if my heart should stop, keep me alive for a minute, I want to see if a curtain drops"
~La Dispute
Thought experiment that is stupid because of the need for context. You need something like:
"your body dies and soul gets passed on trough some system in to a newborn child" -> might have some effect on suicide rates given everyone knows about it.
"your body dies, you have soul and your body is regrown in some lab and soul gets back to it" -> you're likely a soldier and suicide doesnt make any sense.
"your body dies, you have no soul and it doesn't make a difference". -> you die forever and whatever copies that resemble you don't matter.
I don't think so. Because if you're with people you love, then you wouldn't be with them ever again. You would want to say in that body for as long as you can to be with them.
Last edited by Heyer; 2012-08-19 at 10:24 AM.
"It is fortunate
to be favored
with praise and popularity.
It is dire luck
to be dependent
on the feelings of your fellow man."
Its not meaningful to suicide. Let's use the game league of legends for example. Every time you die you give an advantage to your enemies, whoever they might be. They get additional gold and uncontested towers, jungle minions, chances to gank other lanes. Even if you die and are able to get better items and whatnot, it is NEVER TO YOUR ADVANTAGE TO SUICIDE. Yet you see people choosing to die all the time.
No, this has roots in the mahayana tradition but it's been greatly exaggerated in the western interpretations.
Karma is not some punishment that comes for bad actions. It is the fulfillment of actions good and bad until all understanding is learnt through multiple cycles.
According to the OP saying that there's no good or bad but all part of the Great Will, this means it is pretty much the same as karma as understood through traditional buddhism and hinduism as samsara.
First point - that's your answer to the question. Good job, you understood the OP.
Second point - OP didn't state that it was only soldiers who could reincarnate, so therefore there's no reason to assume it would be this point. He says it's the society.
Third point - I have no idea what you mean by this.
But, if we read the OP's posts, he has one where he says that the aliens are able to tap into previous memories, so I would think it's a soul-transferring system, where their old soul gets put back into a new baby body. I assume its a newborn child because the OP clearly made it a point that you would be reborn as a random person.
Context easily attained from reading the posts.
It's pretty much a combination. Japan does not view death in the same way, and also has a confucian based society where you are under pressure of social responsibilities.
Even though they don't do it anymore, the idea of seppuku where you kill yourself to redeem your honour still lingers (but only in extreme personal circumstance).
"It is fortunate
to be favored
with praise and popularity.
It is dire luck
to be dependent
on the feelings of your fellow man."
yo vizzle my nizzle I don't bizlieve dat bling will cultivate greatness
Honour is involved, but not in the traditional way. Death is romanticized, and it is an act of redeeming one's worthless self. You're right in that both are correct. Japan thinks less of death (or more in another perspective) and they have more take societal responsibility more seriously.
Japan glorified death before Buddhism, but after Buddhism it went up exponentially. As such, we can see that reincarnation can make death different when interpreted by certain cultures. Japan is a good example of this.
I agree, I can't imagine a bunch of kids locking themselves in a room and killing themselves with carbon monoxide think they're Takamori Saigo. However, I think the romanticism of suicide helped create an environment where more people respond to life pressures with suicide. Life in industrialized countries in general tends to be very stressful, but suicide is 3 times more common in East Asia than it is in the West. That's a cultural thing.